According to the report of Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee, bird's nest and agarwood are typical and famous products of Khanh Hoa province, contributing significantly to the socio-economic development of the province. Currently, Khanh Hoa owns and exploits 173 bird's nest caves/33 bird's nest islands and many bird's nest houses, with an annual output of thousands of kilograms of finished bird's nest products of all kinds; from this source of raw materials, many valuable products are created such as: whole bird's nest, bird's nest essence, bird's nest water, bird's nest wine, bird's nest cakes...

Khanh Hoa's agarwood is also recognized as a famous branded product nationwide, many agarwood processing villages have been formed in the province, making a great contribution to the development of Vietnam's agarwood industry.

In addition, there have been many products of unknown origin, many counterfeit bird's nest and agarwood products on the market, but there are no specific standards for evaluation, so it is difficult for consumers to distinguish between real and fake, good and bad products.

Even in the classification of products by quality, such as classifying bird's nests by type: Blood nest, Pink nest, Quang nest, Thien nest...; or classifying agarwood by: Ky nam, Natural agarwood, Toc agarwood, Artificial agarwood... to determine value, organizations are also implementing it based on senses (color, taste...), without any specific standards of criteria, quality standards for evaluation. Therefore, state management, economic development, and ensuring consumer rights for these two products face many difficulties.

Bird's nest products displayed at an exhibition

The report also stated that, in addition to Khanh Hoa, there are many localities nationwide with resources of bird's nest and agarwood such as: Binh Dinh, Quang Nam, Kien Giang, Tien Giang, Binh Thuan, Ninh Thuan, Gia Lai, Quang Binh... Therefore, from the practical requirements in Khanh Hoa in particular and in the whole country in general, it is necessary to have a standard regulation on specific indicators to classify and classify products according to quality for bird's nest and agarwood nationwide. Therefore, the People's Committee of Khanh Hoa province recognizes that the development of National Standards for bird's nest and agarwood is an urgent task. Pursuant to Point p, Clause 2, Article 32 of Decree No. 132/2008/ND-CP, amended by Clause 14, Article 1 of Decree No. 74/2018/ND-CP dated May 15, 2018 of the Government on amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 132/2008/ND-CP dated December 31, 2008 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Product and Goods Quality, the Ministry of Science and Technology shall preside over and coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors to unify management responsibilities for products in cases where no specific management is assigned to any ministry; At the same time, according to the provisions of Article 11, Article 14 of the Law on Technical Standards and Regulations and Article 4 of Circular No. 11/2021/TT-BKHCN dated November 18, 2021 of the Ministry of Science and Technology on detailed regulations on the development and application of standards, the authority to develop the Plan and organize the development of National Standards for bird's nests and agarwood belongs to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

On that basis, the People's Committee of Khanh Hoa province proposed that the Ministry of Science and Technology add to the Plan for developing National Standards for the period 2024-2030 the content of developing National Standards for bird's nests and agarwood; propose that the Ministry of Science and Technology be the agency in charge of developing National Standards for bird's nests and agarwood.

In addition, Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee proposed that the Ministry of Science and Technology add "Bird's Nest" to the list of national products of the National Product Development Program until 2030. Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee is also assigning specialized agencies to advise on the task of protecting the "Khanh Hoa Bird's Nest" trademark in the form of a certification trademark. During the process of implementing the procedures for establishing rights, Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee proposed that the Department of Intellectual Property assess the practical conditions to soon issue a certificate of confirmation, helping the locality soon have a basis for protecting ownership rights to Khanh Hoa Bird's Nest products.

At the meeting, Dr. Trieu Viet Phuong, acting Director of the Vietnam Institute for Standards and Quality, said that agarwood and bird's nest are products of high economic value, so having additional tools to help control the quality of these two products is very necessary. National standards are useful tools for quality preservation, and scientific issues and surveys to determine the specific characteristics of each product are very important and inseparable.

Concluding the meeting, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Hong Thai said that he would "pay special attention" to the proposals of the localities, and at the same time requested the functional units of the Ministry (directly the Department of Science and Technology of Economic and Technical Sectors; the Department of Intellectual Property, the Committee for Standards, Metrology and Quality) to coordinate with relevant units to continue to guide localities in implementation.

"I request that the functional units of the Ministry coordinate with relevant sectors to continue to synthesize the difficulties and proposals of localities to promptly resolve and help localities," said Deputy Minister Tran Hong Thai.

Deputy Minister Tran Hong Thai also requested Khanh Hoa to step up the implementation of science and technology programs and tasks that directly serve the goals and tasks of socio-economic development, effectively promote the potential and advantages of the province; focus on developing products with local advantages, products according to the value chain, serving the growth and socio-economic development of the province.